Manzanar

It has been over two weeks since I visited Manzanar, but the experience is still very much with me. If you don’t know what Manzanar is, I can give you a brief history. It is one of ten internment camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the United States were sent to live during World War II. Although I am not of Japanese ancestry, the whole time I was visiting there, I felt a vivid sensation of being connected to this part of history.

Manzanar is in the Owens Valley, a sparsely populated high desert area that we drive through when traveling to Mammoth Lakes or Reno from Southern California. The scenery is spectacular with the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range (capped by 14,505 foot Mt. Whitney) to the West and the White Mountains to the East. The weather is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but windy year-round.

I visited with a friend on the way back from spring skiing at Mammoth Lakes. There is not much left at the site, which was mostly disassembled after the war. But in 2004, the National Park Service opened a visitor center in one of the few remaining buildings. On the beautiful, temperate sunny late-April day we visited, at first it was difficult to switch gears from doing sporting activities in the outdoors to going into a dark visitor center.

When I started reading the displays and histories presented in the visitor center, my first reaction was, “This is so depressing. Get me out of here!” I felt almost nauseous imaging what it must have been like. Law abiding, hard-working families were given two-week’s notice before incarceration. Many abandoned jobs, homes and pets, which weren’t allowed into the interment camps. They could only bring what they could carry with them. Many were forced to live in horse stalls at the Santa Anita racetrack before the interment camps were ready for them. Once at Manzanar, all residents had to share barracks with other families and feel the wind and dirt coming in through the inadequate wall. For most, their careers and homes and all else that they had worked for were not waiting for them after they were finally allowed to live in freedom on the West Coast years later, and they had to start over. Many chose to relocate to Wisconsin and other Eastern states where they knew nobody, just to regain their freedom.

I am puzzled by the decision to place Japanese Americans into these camps, while we fought overseas to free people from concentration camps. German-Americans and Italian-Americans were not sent to camps, although we were also at war with Germany and Italy. Many government officials, including J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI at the time, saw no reason to question the loyalty of Japanese Americans, yet still this ill conceived plan was approved by the president. Perhaps it was because the German and Italian Americans can’t readily be distinguished visually from other Americans of European descent, while the Japanese looked different. I guess looking for a rational explanation to irrational racism is futile.

But the closer I looked at the lives of the Manzanar residents, the more inspired I became but the small stories of individual lives. A local woman became a schoolteacher at Manzanar and brought her own daughter to school there just so she could help out people who she believed were being unjustly persecuted. Young internees formed swing bands and baton twirling classes so they could express themselves as other teenagers do. Craftspeople turned fruit crates into beautiful furniture for their barracks homes. Those raised with a love of nature built stunning Japanese gardens to provide them with a beautiful place they could rest and transcend their current experience. Instead of complaining, most residents did whatever they could to turn the camp into a community. What an inspiring message to focus on those things that are within our power to change, that have the power to bring us happiness and peace.

My initial reaction of, “Why should I spend the day in a depressing place and focus on things that depress me?” completely turned around. I walked away feeling that I could not have spent my day in a more spiritual place. I felt connected with all human beings regardless of what side of the war we fought on, what religion we follow, and what our outer appearance looks like. Although I have always believed in due process and freedom, I know that this experience reminded me in a very tangible way of how important it is that we vigilantly stand up for the rights of each citizen of the world.

At the Manzanar graveyard, brightly colored origami cranes left behind by visitors who came to the annual Manzanar pilgrimage the previous day, were scattered by the wind onto the desolate desert sand. A lizard climbed onto the stones marking the gravesite of a stray dog adopted by Manzanar residents. While staring at the concrete remains of a fountain that used to flow in a long-abandoned Japanese garden, I could suddenly see adults sitting in the shade of the cottonwood trees above. I could hear the laughter of children playing with their batons. I could feel the energy of all who lived in this now-barren place – happy and sad, accepting and angry, young and old, strong and frail – and was at one with all of it.